Social Links

Food Security

The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people’s dietary needs as well as their food preferences. The impact of the food environment on nutrition, health, and the quality of life occur within the context of the following: 1) an increasingly concentrated system of food production and distribution, 2) racial segregation, 3) economic inequalities, 4) increased fast-food consumption, 5) health disparities, and 6) environmental injustice. Many low-income neighborhoods and communities of color have been systematically deprived of access to healthy and sustainable food. Low-income communities have been deprived of producing their own food and often live in food deserts where fast food is the king and fresh food is nonexistent.

Disenfranchised residents who live in urban food desert areas tend to address food security problems by walking to local corner stores, 99 cent stores, or fast food restaurant to shop. They also supplement their diets with government and charitable food assistance programs; buy food from mobile vendors; and, if they ride buses to jobs outside of their neighborhoods, buy food from grocery stores in more affluent parts of the city.

The industrial-scale production of grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy products is regionally concentrated, so the local food environment in most areas is disconnected from local agriculture. These agricultural and economic policies have led to a decrease in the number of farms while, at the same time the size of farms has dramatically increased.

Urban farmers provide a dimension for the environmental/social justice linkage. For example, in several cities across the United States, there are institutions such as food banks, social service agencies, and individuals who have established urban farms with nearby working farms. These urban farming projects work with community gardens and local small farms to provide food for urban residents.

Community-based food processing enterprises (e.g. bakeries and tortillerias) provide an environmental/social justice linkage such that the expansion of local food systems into the processing arena greatly enlarges markets for locally grown products.

There are several food banks (e.g. Atlanta Community Food Bank) across the United States who has a mission to educate, engage, and empower residents to fight hunger in their respective communities.

The environmental justice efforts to improve access to healthy food include the following: attracting new food markets to urban deserts, applying grassroots pressure on corner stores to offer more healthy food, providing constraints on the menu items at fast food restaurants, and reforming school food menus for students to include more fruits and vegetables. Thus, creating a food policy council.

In America’s urban ‘food deserts’, it is impossible to find healthy foods within walking distance of one’s residence. The lack of healthy food increases rates of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and other life threatening and life-altering diseases. These conditions also work to ensnare families in cycles of poverty; higher medical bills, which combined with less insurance coverage equals mountains of debt.